Gurugram: Air pistols stolen from vehicle of two professional shooters

Police said an unknown suspect allegedly stole two air pistols and a pair of shooting glasses from a vehicle in which two professional shooters were travelling in Sadar Bazaar on Monday afternoon.

Police said the suspect distracted one of the victims by scattering ₹10 notes on the road beside the car.

Police registered an FIR under Section 379 (punishment for theft) of the Indian Penal Code was in connection with the theft on the basis of one of the shooters-- Vinay Rathee’s--written complaint.

Rathee (20) is a resident of New Amanpura in Gurugram while his friend Sagar Bhargava (18) is from Khedi Gaon, Gurugram.

Rathee said that he, Bhargava and Bhargava’s sister Megha were returning home after practising at a shooting range in Bhondsi when the incident took place.

Rathee said that he is a pre-national level shooter while Bhargava is a national-level shooter.

“Bhargava was driving the car. He stopped at a cellphone shop with his sister to purchase a cellphone cover. The shopkeeper asked him to move the car away from the shop so I drove it away,” he said.

Rathee said that someone then knocked on the car’s window and pointed to some money on the road.

“I opened the door to find eight or nine ₹10 currency notes strewn on the road. I started picking them up thinking Bhargava may have dropped them. Within 20 seconds, the man opened the rear door, picked up two bags on the rear seat containing our pistols and fled. We realised that the pistols were stolen after several minutes,” he said.

Rathee claimed that both pistols were Swiss-manufactured and worth at least ₹4 lakh, while the glasses cost around ₹50,000.

Gurugram City police station SHO Ved Pal said it was inconclusive if the shooters were targeted by a thak-thak gang. “We are gathering CCTV camera footage to identify the suspect. An investigation is going on,” he added.